


my life never looked so bright

by scarykin



Category: Garfield - All Media Types, Internet Personalities, Real Person Fiction, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: ASMR, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Blogging, Crush, Drabble, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Makeover, Nermal - Freeform, Nervana Is Not A Youtuber, POV Second Person, RPF, Slow Burn, YouTube
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-04 19:38:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15848007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarykin/pseuds/scarykin
Summary: A chance encounter on the morning of your first day. You really weren't expecting to start junior year by stumbling into a crush, let alone a girl with a talent for makeovers...





	1. That Girl

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's taken me forever to actually get this out, but I hope y'all like it. Thanks to Nolly and all my lovely friends on tumblr for all the good vibes and encouragement. 
> 
> BTW: This is an AU where Nervana never starred in Garfield and Friends, and never subsequently started her channel. I put a reference to her name change in, but not in a way that feels disrespectful.

Your parents drop you off at the dorms where you firmly decline their offer of help with your suitcase. After a tearful goodbye, you trundle up the drive, through the doors into the foyer, up a flight of stairs, up another flight of stairs, until finally you arrive at your room. Your key is stuffed into the bottom of your suitcase where you put it as soon as it came in the mail. It takes a lot of rummaging, cursing, and flying pairs of underwear before you find it and are finally able to let yourself in.

You stand there for a moment, taking stock of what will become your new home for the next year. The walls are awfully bare, painted an ugly yellowy-cream and peppered here and there with marks and chipped paint. Everything is relatively clean, from the bare mattress to the mini fridge- a handy bonus you hadn't really expected. It's small though, almost as small as a cupboard- if you sat against the wall adjacent to the door you could probably reach the opposite wall with your shoes.  

You make up the bed with clean sheets from your suitcase and start to hang your clothes in the tiny cupboard squashed between the fridge and the window. You can already tell that there isn't enough space, and you feel a twinge of regret for not being more restrained with your packing. This is immediately followed by an even bigger twinge of regret for forgetting to hand in your student accommodation form until the last minute.  

You stuff the cupboard to capacity and fall heavily back onto your newly made bed. There are some posters and Pokemon plushies left in the bottom of the suitcase, but you’ll put them up around the room later. Thankfully classes don't start for another week, so you can sleep in tomorrow if you want to. You stare at the ceiling for a bit, and you must have drifted off at some point because you’re woken up at what must be six in the morning by loud and persistent knocking.  

This causes several dizzy moments of disorientation as your confused brain tries to disentangle itself from a dream about rampaging yellow llamas made of pudding. There's a dream journal at the bottom of your suitcase, crammed with line upon line of illegible scrawl, but no time to write in it just now. (Later that day you try to recall the details of the dream, but the only thing you can remember is that the pudding was vanilla. This seemed to be important at the time.)

Your eyelids unglue themselves with great difficulty. The features of the tiny, drab room come into focus. For an instant you are gripped by terror at the thought that you have been kidnapped, before the memories from the previous day start oozing back. 

You heave yourself out of bed with murder on your mind and shuffle over to the door in your socks, where you discover with a twinge of dread that you forgot to lock it that morning. You thank your lucky stars that you weren’t murdered in you sleep.

The girl on the other side of the door has her fist raised to knock again, but quickly lowers it when she clocks your murderous expression. She has huge, wide eyes, and you can’t help but notice her unusual pupils, which have an irregular, star-like shape.

Her makeup is flawless, and you groan internally as you run through what she probably thinks about your bed hair, plain face, and pyjamas.

“Hey hi hello," she says, with enough chirpiness to put a sparrow to shame, interrupting your train of thought.

"My name's Nermal, but everyone calls me Nervana. I live in the room across from yours. I noticed you'd just moved in and I thought I'd welcome you to the building."

She pauses for a beat, obviously allowing you time to respond with the usual social niceties.

You just stare at her with steadily growing impatience.

"But-err-I can see that this might be a bad time. Anyway, I made cupcakes for everyone as a sort of welcome gift. So, here you are." 

She shoves a plastic wrapped, squishy something into your unresisting hand.

"Well, I guess I'll see you around then."

Nervana wanders off, leaving you staring after her and wondering what the hell just happened. You look down at the cupcake, slightly smushed from her fingers and decorated with what looks like a wobbly smiley face in the icing. In a fit of madness, you unwrap the cupcake and eat it in three bites.  You throw the wrapper in the bin and flop back onto the bed, face still covered in chocolate crumbs. 

You doesn't mean to fall asleep again, but you do, because you wake up again close to evening and immediately realise you’re starving. You flop out of bed and grope your way to the bathroom down the hall to wash your face, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible and praying you don’t run into anyone in the hallway.

When you exit the bathroom, you see that Nervana is once more standing outside your room. You stare at her with steadily mounting irritation.

You walk up behind her and cough loudly. Nervana almost hits the ceiling. "You almost gave me a heart attack!" She complains.

"You shouldn't lurk outside other people's rooms then," you say, leaning against the wall and crossing your arms.

"I wasn't lurking!" Nervana shouts. 

"What would you call it, then?"

"..." 

"Exactly."

"Anyway," Nervana says hurriedly, "I just wanted to ask whether you wanted to have dinner with us in the common room. We're ordering a pizza. Unless you have other plans...?"

You don’t. The only things in your room resembling food are a few packets of Haribo. You could go and get dinner out, but your knowledge of local eateries starts and ends with the cafe on the corner, which is probably shut this late in the evening. You considers your options for a while, watching Nervana fidget out of the corner of your eye.

Finally you shrug. "I guess I might as well. It's not like I have anything better to do." Nervana instantly brightens. You hate to admit it, but it’s like watching the sun rise.

"Great! Pizza's arriving at 7:30. I'll see you then!" She trots off down the hall before you remember you don’t actually know where the common room is.


	2. Pizza no Chill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so short! The next chapter will make up for it.

After an embarrassingly long search, you find the common room. It's large, and littered with relatively beat up but comfortable looking chairs and sofas.

You sit awkwardly in the corner and pretend to text until the pizza arrives, feeling too overwhelmed to introduce yourself to any of the others, who are chatting happily. From the corner of your eye, you watch Nervana talk to a girl with dyed blue hair.

Nervana can't seem to keep still, all fidgety fingers and restless movements, like a moth butting its soft, powdery head against a lightbulb.  The other girl seems unbothered, but you can’t help but think that if you were her, you’d want to grab hold of Nervana’s shoulders and keep her still for just a minute - just so you could hear yourself think.

You manage to get through pizza time successfully with minimal social interaction, snagging yourself a couple of slices laden with slices of bell peppers and mushrooms. Not what you would normally go for, but not bad.

You planned on making a hasty getaway after filling up, but Nervana turns at the worst possible moment and your eyes meet. The pit of your stomach yawns open and your heart tips into a nose-dive as her face lights up like a Christmas tree. You try to scan for exits so you can beat a hasty retreat, but Nervana is already walking towards you and you resign yourself to your fate.

Before you know it, you end up being roped into a tour of her room. It’s not too different from yours, but tastefully decorated. You spot a couple of little non spiny cactus plants on her desk, which is sitting in front of the biggest mirror that could possibly have fit on the wall.

Nervana suddenly looks bashful, but you sit right down in front of the big Broadwayesque mirror, impressed.

“My major is broadcasting, but I’ve always wanted to be a makeup artist,” Nervana says by way of explanation. Her sentence hangs in the air awkwardly.

“Could I practice on you? There’s a look I’ve really been wanting to try out on someone. I can pay in pizza.”

Still feeling grumpy, shy and overwhelmed, you want to say no. But, for some reason, you don’t.

“Could you push your hair out of your face?”

You do.


	3. More than a Makeover?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You volunteer as tribute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments make me happy <3

Nervana pulls out a small pink sponge and bottle-like thing that’s beige. Foundation, you suppose. You never really got into makeup, not properly. “I hope this is your colour,” she hums, holding it up to your face. “Yeah. Close enough. Be right back.”

She jogs to the bathroom next door and you hear the water run. When she comes back the small pink sponge is slightly darker and her hand is wet. 

“I almost forgot the most important part of makeup prep!" 

You look at her, momentarily confused. 

"Primer. It’s like a base just to keep your makeup on. Don’t ask me about the science behind it, it just works.” 

She divides the cream over your nose and cheeks, then she asks you to close your eyes to gingerly swipe it over your lids as well. You don’t breathe the entire time. 

When she's done she opens the cap of the foundation and dabs some out onto the back of her hand. It contrasts strongly with her soft greyish complexion. 

She dips the sponge into the foundation and reaches for your face, then stops herself. “Oh yeah, sorry. This is a beauty blender.” She holds the sponge up for inspection. 

“Not important, but it’s used to apply foundation smoothly. With a brush it could get streaky.” 

You realises you’ve been staring at her pink lips moving. You nearly jump when she licks her lips and bites the bottom one in concentration. You never really understood the whole ASMR thing, but the attention she’s paying you and her serious expression is somehow melting away the stress of your first day. 

She starts dabbing over your forehead, cheeks, nose and chin. You actually breathe, but just barely. It’s a long enough process that you might have passed out otherwise. 

“Right, now to concealer. Not that you need any, because your skin is like, actually so flawless.” 

Your face feels too hot as Nervana dots some of the concealer under your eyes, grabbing the sponge again and dabbing it along the dots. 

“Just blending that out now. I like just brightening up the area here a bit, because then comes the contour, which I’ll assume you know what’s for.” 

“I just know it from the memes.” 

She puts the sponge away laughing, and gets a pot of powder and a big brush out. She presses the brush around in it, then starts gently swiping across your face. It feels incredibly soft, and you feel yourself frozen in place. 

“Here’s the highlight,” she swiftly continues, and this brush you like, because it looks cool, fan shaped. The shimmer of the highlight has you mesmerized for a moment. 

“I’m putting it on your cheekbones and the bridge of your nose.” 

She continues to work, sketching out and filling in your eyebrows with eyeshadow and DipBrow. 

Then comes the eyeshadow, a pearl over your lids then brushing with a dark brown a little higher, blending it up, 

The eyeliner is the worst, both liquid and pencil, and Nervana apologises profusely, gently wiping a stray tear for you with a kleenex. 

Finally. You jump back with a hand hovering near your mouth when you see your reflection. 

You still look like yourself, but like, a million times prettier. 

You never knew that you could feel like this. With a new friend that seems to understand things, the best possible version of yourself. You almost don’t believe the promises that stretch out ahead of you, but you can almost hold them the way she holds her makeup brush. 

You leave in a daze after Nervana thanks you for helping her test out her skills. Her scent follows you to your bed, like springtime or daisies. Is she magic, or is this just some awkward crush gone out of control?


End file.
